Welcome to DBSTalk

Welcome to DBSTalk. Our community covers all aspects of video delivery solutions including: Direct Broadcast Satellite (DBS), Cable Television, and Internet Protocol Television (IPTV). We also have forums to discuss popular television programs, home theater equipment, and internet streaming service providers. Members of our community include experts who can help you solve technical problems, industry professionals, company representatives, and novices who are here to learn.

Like most online communities you must register to view or post in our community. Sign-up is a free and simple process that requires minimal information. Be a part of our community by signing in or creating an account. The Digital Bit Stream starts here!

That is absolutely WRONG. The three minute pad can and does get dropped anytime the tuner is needed to record a show immediately following the one it is currently recording.

Sorry, but you're the one who is wrong here.

IF you leave the default padding, then the receiver will ONLY end the recording to start another one on the same channel. It still will not interrupt to change the channels even with the default padding. That's how the receiver works.

IF you change the defaults to extend the end time... like some have to 3 minutes... then the receiver will NOT stop that recording early just to switch to another.

Again, glitches might happen... but outside of a random glitch... the receiver doesn't work as you are indicating.

Yes it is something for DISH to fix.

If DISH would do like all the other programming distributors and have their guide go to the actual minute that the program is scheduled to end instead of having the guide cutting it off on the hour the problem would not exist.

Nope... not the problem.

Dish does have the EPG give proper times when the channels give that proper info to Tribune for EPG data! There are lots of channels where you see things end at 9:05, 10:55, etc... when the EPG data is provided for planned odd air times, then Dish receivers catch them.

The problem... networks depend on commercial advertising, so they don't want you DVRing them... they want you watching live... so they start early sometimes and run late other times... they want you to miss the end so next time you might watch live instead of DVRing.

As I've said many times... watch something live and you'll see what is really going on... many shows are going away at 11pm, say, for a commercial break and then coming back at 11:01pm to finish those last couple of minutes of the show. They are doing it to mess with your DVRing habits.

Dish cannot do anything about that.

But you can... schedule end padding of at least 5 minutes, and you'll be fine.

IF you change the defaults to extend the end time... like some have to 3 minutes... then the receiver will NOT stop that recording early just to switch to another.

It will not stop early but it will stop recording exactly on the hour to begin the next recording. I have all my timers set with the 1 min early 3 min late as the default setting but it automatically switched to end 0 mins late when there is another time set to go off.

You can see this by checking the options on a show to be recorded later hit options if it says 0 mins late that is because of another timer set to go off.

When I extended it to end 5 mins late the next timer was skipped unless the priority of that timer was greater.

That is why I am so glad i have distant nets from San fran it really helps out, I will record Big Bang Theory on east coast and record 2 & 1/2 men on the west coast so i do not miss the very end.

It will not stop early but it will stop recording exactly on the hour to begin the next recording. I have all my timers set with the 1 min early 3 min late as the default setting but it automatically switched to end 0 mins late when there is another time set to go off.

You can see this by checking the options on a show to be recorded later hit options if it says 0 mins late that is because of another timer set to go off.

When I extended it to end 5 mins late the next timer was skipped unless the priority of that timer was greater.

That is why I am so glad i have distant nets from San fran it really helps out, I will record Big Bang Theory on east coast and record 2 & 1/2 men on the west coast so i do not miss the very end.

This is only a problem when both tuners are recording at same time.

I hate to fall back on this meme... but...

You're doing it wrong.

Seriously.

The only time the Dish receiver will stop a recording in progress and start a different one (barring glitches) is when: Both timers are set to record on the same channel AND you use the default start/end padding.

I can assure you... I have all my timers set to start 2 min early and end 3 min late... and my DVR never interrupts a timer to start a different one... even when all tuners are in use. I always get a "skipped due to conflict" message if I try to set more timers than I have tuners this way.

If you look at a timer and see that it has "0 min" padding... that means you created it with the receiver's default padding and NOT a custom padding.

You can change those defaults (like I did) to always use longer padding... and never run into this... but if you didn't do that, then all your timers would still be created with the default unless you manually edit them.

Unless you have a specially problematic DVR that the rest of us don't have... what you're saying can't be true OR you're not actually setting the padding the way you think you are.

FYI... to be specific... The DVR defaults (if you don't change it) to 1 min early, 3 min late. With those settings, the DVR will auto-adjust to back-to-back timers on the same channel and will change the end/start times to 0 padding to conserve tuners. This is the behavior I am talking about.

That's why I changed my start time to 2 min early... that disables the DVR trying to be smart and conserve tuners. IF you set timers with 1 min early, 3 min late... then your receiver will continue to do what you are describing as that is intended behavior.

The easy way to fix that is to start earlier OR end later and save that as the default so you don't have to remember to change it each time. Easy peasy.

Well this is an example of Monday night, I have timers set for 2 broke girls @9 and Mike and Molly @930 both on CBS I have the options set 1 min early and 3 mins late. At exactly 930 one recording ends and the other begins. This is on tuner one. On tuner two @ 9pm I also record Mob Doctor with the same 1 min early and 3 mins late. @exactly 10pm in spite of the 3 mins late Tuner one changes to Record Revolution on NBC and tuner two changes to ABC to record Castle. @ exactly 11pm again in spite of the end 3mins late tuner one changes to SyFy to record Warehouse 13 and Tuner two changes to record Major Crimes. Sometimes i will miss the ends of some shows. The padding whether by default or manually added is useless with that many timers going off on both tuners one right after the other. I am ok with it because if it did follow the padding exactly I would end up missing the first 3 mins of the next show. I did try to set the end to 5 mins but all that did was cause timers to skip.

The only time the Dish receiver will stop a recording in progress and start a different one (barring glitches) is when: Both timers are set to record on the same channel AND you use the default start/end padding.

In my experience: Back to back timers on the same channel lose the padding regardless of if the timer has the machine default padding.

It annoyed me enough on the 622 that I would set some of my timers for the mapdown channel and others for the high number channels ... for example, record Stewart on channel 107 and Colbert on channel 9485. Back to back OTA programs (via satellite) were recorded from 016-00 and 7092. It was a pain to manage that (especially with programs that kept changing air time), it broke when the networks scheduled two episodes of the same show in a row and it led to a lot of recording conflicts. But it was the only way to make sure I got the padding on back to back shows on the same channel.

On the Hopper the high number channels are gone ... so I am forced to set timers on the same channel and over the past few months I have become accustomed to watching Stewart's "Moment of Zen" at the beginning of Colbert's recording (fortunately Comedy Central's clock is off enough that the recording usually changes during the commercial break). But the plus side is that on OTA via satellite programs during PTAT I get the correct padding (up to the limits of the PTAT window for the day).

But back to the point: In my experience both timers on the same channel loses padding. Even if there are other tuners available.

If you look at a timer and see that it has "0 min" padding... that means you created it with the receiver's default padding and NOT a custom padding.

Are you looking at the timer or the event?

FYI... to be specific... The DVR defaults (if you don't change it) to 1 min early, 3 min late. With those settings, the DVR will auto-adjust to back-to-back timers on the same channel and will change the end/start times to 0 padding to conserve tuners. This is the behavior I am talking about.

That's why I changed my start time to 2 min early... that disables the DVR trying to be smart and conserve tuners. IF you set timers with 1 min early, 3 min late... then your receiver will continue to do what you are describing as that is intended behavior.

The easy way to fix that is to start earlier OR end later and save that as the default so you don't have to remember to change it each time. Easy peasy.

I have changed my default to 0 minutes before 1 minute after. Back to back recordings on the same channel lose the padding (end late on the event changed to 0). Manually editing the event to add the extra minute does not work.

IF you leave the default padding, then the receiver will ONLY end the recording to start another one on the same channel. It still will not interrupt to change the channels even with the default padding. That's how the receiver works.

IF you change the defaults to extend the end time... like some have to 3 minutes... then the receiver will NOT stop that recording early just to switch to another.

Again, glitches might happen... but outside of a random glitch... the receiver doesn't work as you are indicating.

Nope... not the problem.

Dish does have the EPG give proper times when the channels give that proper info to Tribune for EPG data! There are lots of channels where you see things end at 9:05, 10:55, etc... when the EPG data is provided for planned odd air times, then Dish receivers catch them.

The problem... networks depend on commercial advertising, so they don't want you DVRing them... they want you watching live... so they start early sometimes and run late other times... they want you to miss the end so next time you might watch live instead of DVRing.

As I've said many times... watch something live and you'll see what is really going on... many shows are going away at 11pm, say, for a commercial break and then coming back at 11:01pm to finish those last couple of minutes of the show. They are doing it to mess with your DVRing habits.

Dish cannot do anything about that.

But you can... schedule end padding of at least 5 minutes, and you'll be fine.

Nope shows on my bell system will show as ending a x:01 and dish will show the same episode ending on the hour, guess which one gets cut off because dish round the time.

Sent from my DROIDX

Kevin3 Hoppers3 Joeys, all wireless1 Hopper 2.0YES, all Hoppers can see the recordings on any Hopper.

Stewart, I'm not sure what you are arguing. There is no debate that if you have both tuners set to record and the timers are set to, say, a 5 minute pad (5 minutes late) they will ignore that and switch exactly at the moment the next show starts in order to not miss the beginning of that show. E.g. Tuner 1 is set to record 7-8:05 on ABC, Tuner 2 is set to record 7-8:05 on NBC, Tuner 1 is set to record the next show at 8-9:05 on Fox, Tuner 2 is set to record the next show at 8-9:05. If the show on ABC and NBC runs 30 seconds or 1 minute past 8, you will miss that.

What I can't figure out: We ran the experiment this week, my neighbor has DirectTV. We set schedules exactly the same, "full" Tuners scheduled back to back. Somehow his DVRs caught the end of the shows, while my Dish ones cut it off. It is as if the DirectTV DVRs somehow have a way to record the overlap on the two channels even when all tuners are being used. This matches what my experiences were with DirectTV until I switched to Dish recently - we just never had this last 30 seconds or minute ending cut-off problem but I don't know how they did it, I just know they somehow have the tech to do it and Dish doesn't.

I did also notice the difference someone noted, DirectTV is showing some shows ending at X:01 and Dish is showing the same show ending at X:0, FWIW

E.g. Tuner 1 is set to record 7-8:05 on ABC, Tuner 2 is set to record 7-8:05 on NBC, Tuner 1 is set to record the next show at 8-9:05 on Fox, Tuner 2 is set to record the next show at 8-9:05. If the show on ABC and NBC runs 30 seconds or 1 minute past 8, you will miss that.

What model of DVR? Perhaps that is the difference between your experience and his?

There may also have been a firmware change that fixed/broke that. I no longer have a 622 to test but I seem to recall DISH treating the next full program as more important than the padding on the previous hour ... which would fit your example above. Perhaps at some point the DVR would have rejected the third show (Fox in your example) as a conflict and the behavior changed?

That being said ... with the networks starting programs at :01 with the final scene of the previous show touching the first scene of the next show it would be near impossible to synchronize to the exact second when it would be safe to leave one channel and start recording the next. Something has to be cut.

I think we have some confusion in some of our terminology here too... I find it awkward to keep saying "default" when we can change the defaults... Also, I omitted something that I remembered when James posted.

The "default" default is 1 min early, 3 min late... IF you change those to anything lower than that... then I think the tuner-combining happens... so 0 min early and 1 min late works the same as 1 min early and 3 min late... by which I mean, that back-to-back recordings scheduled on the same channel will share a tuner and have those end paddings adjusted to do so.

I changed mine to 2 min early and 3 min late. I've never (on a 622, 722, or a 922) seen a recording stop early to start another one... not on any channel and not even on the same channel.

As long as I have settings greater than the "default" ones that come with the receiver... timers do not stop early or get interrupted by other timers.

Now, some say "I do that but then it skips recordings"... well, of course it does! Because there are a limited number of tuners... so if you create overlapping timers it needs unique tuners to launch them... so increasing the start or end padding naturally limits your ability to record shows.

So you have to ask yourself... do I want to record my entire show OR record multiple shows. That's the tradeoff. There's no way around it, since the networks refuse to start/end their shows exactly on the hour. IF all the networks cooperated with the timeslot, then you wouldn't need any paddings... but again, this is a network-induced problem and not a Dish one.

I really don't know what Dish is supposed to do about programs that do not follow the times reported to be their airing lengths... networks (some more so than others) do this all the time. It is annoying, but not something Dish can easily address.

It does not matter if I use the default that came with my DVR, the default that I changed on my DVR or manually set a different over/under when creating the timer. The padding is lost and the recording ends when the tuner is needed for the next event.

I changed mine to 2 min early and 3 min late. I've never (on a 622, 722, or a 922) seen a recording stop early to start another one... not on any channel and not even on the same channel.

As long as I have settings greater than the "default" ones that come with the receiver... timers do not stop early or get interrupted by other timers.

Now, some say "I do that but then it skips recordings"... well, of course it does! Because there are a limited number of tuners... so if you create overlapping timers it needs unique tuners to launch them... so increasing the start or end padding naturally limits your ability to record shows.

So you have to ask yourself... do I want to record my entire show OR record multiple shows. That's the tradeoff. There's no way around it, since the networks refuse to start/end their shows exactly on the hour. IF all the networks cooperated with the timeslot, then you wouldn't need any paddings... but again, this is a network-induced problem and not a Dish one.

I really don't know what Dish is supposed to do about programs that do not follow the times reported to be their airing lengths... networks (some more so than others) do this all the time. It is annoying, but not something Dish can easily address.

Stewart, most of us have the end time default extended to keep shows from getting cut off. The puzzling issue is that SOME DVRs, such as the DirectTV ones I had, and some people talking about some cable ones also, do NOT cut a show off early if it goes a minute late, even if it needs both tuners to start new shows. If I never needed both tuners to record new shows my shows would all go 3 minutes late (where I have it set) and no problem.

I don't know how DirectTV gets around this, but when I had DirectTV until recently, I just never had the last minute cut off even when both tuners had to switch to a new show. And I tested it again recently with my neighbor and I setting our DVRs to the exact same settings for a series of shows (he has DirectTV, I have Dish.) On mine, a couple of the shows lost the last minute (everything starts on time) and on his, the shows did NOT lose a last minute, AND the new shows started on time. It would seem impossible with only two tuners, and we were wondering if DirectTV's buffer system somehow allowed for this (with DirectTV I could switch channels, then go back to the previous show and I would not lose any buffer on the previous show, unlike Dish where as soon as I switch channels I lose the buffer on the previous channel. So maybe they use buffers in some clever way.)

I also notice in the guide shows on Dish showing an ending of 8:00 and on the DirecTV guide ending at 8:01, for example.

So - there IS something that can be done because others do it. But I suspect you have to design the DVRs up front to take this into account.

It would seem impossible with only two tuners, and we were wondering if DirectTV's buffer system somehow allowed for this (with DirectTV I could switch channels, then go back to the previous show and I would not lose any buffer on the previous show, unlike Dish where as soon as I switch channels I lose the buffer on the previous channel. So maybe they use buffers in some clever way.)

It is impossible on two tuners. At some point the tuner must leave one channel and go to the other. While having that point at :01 may be better than having it at :00 one tuner cannot be used to record two different channels at the same time (except on the Hopper during PTAT).

It is impossible on two tuners. At some point the tuner must leave one channel and go to the other. While having that point at :01 may be better than having it at :00 one tuner cannot be used to record two different channels at the same time (except on the Hopper during PTAT).

I get that. I know it is impossible. That's why I wonder if DirectTV used some kind of buffer system of some sort. I assume it isn't magic. I even wondered at one point if DirectTV's DVRs had a "mini-tuner" 3rd tuner that was just used for something like this (they don't.)

I agree - it is impossible for two tuners to do this, as it would require one tuner to continue to record the extra minute, and two tuners to start up the new shows. Yet - somehow the DirectTV DVRs did it.

Hmmmmmmm.... need to do another experiment, as I just thought of something - if DirectTV's guide measures to the minute and Dish's only to 5 minutes, I wonder if what happened is that DirectTV's accurately saw the one show ending a minute late in the guide, recorded the whole thing, then switched a minute late, and the other show to which it switched started a minute late due to the show preceeding it starting a minute late - which it could see in the guide, but Dish's system is unable to. THAT is doable. I'll get more data this week - his wife is out of town so we can play with his DVR and set the shows up to match mine.

Two Broke Girls shows as starting at 9:01 and ending at 9:31. Dish's guide shows it as starting at 9:00 and ending at 9:30. Zap2it shows How I Met Your Mother Starting at 8:00 and ending at 8:31,which Dish's guide shows it as 8:00 to 8:30. Bones, OTOH, is 8:00 to 9:00 on both.

It would be a BIG help if Dish's guide had the actual start and stop times listed. At least then if you had a tuner that had to switch to start a new show, and the new show started at 9:01 and the show it was switching from ended at 9:01, it would get those right, even if it couldn't handle shows that end a minute after the new show starts.

It does not matter if I use the default that came with my DVR, the default that I changed on my DVR or manually set a different over/under when creating the timer. The padding is lost and the recording ends when the tuner is needed for the next event.

What are you doing differently from me?

I know if you leave the default alone there are problems... I also know that editing an existing timer doesn't always "stick" the changes.

So... what I do is change those defaults... *My* defaults are 2 min early and 3 min late. All of my timers get created that way... I don't have to edit them afterwards.

I wonder... if what you (and others) are doing is NOT changing the receiver defaults but rather trying to make the changes at the time you set the recording? or editing afterwards? Am I right?

IF I'm right... then maybe there is something Dish can fix after all... I would expect it to work if you made the changes at the time you set the timer to override the default settings... also would expect editing a timer to work as well... so if those are the broken scenarios, then Dish does have something they can fix after all.

I assure everyone, though, that mine works as I've described... and I don't ever have any timers interrupt each other on any of my DVRs (that currently includes 622, 722, and 922)...

Two Broke Girls shows as starting at 9:01 and ending at 9:31. Dish's guide shows it as starting at 9:00 and ending at 9:30. Zap2it shows How I Met Your Mother Starting at 8:00 and ending at 8:31,which Dish's guide shows it as 8:00 to 8:30. Bones, OTOH, is 8:00 to 9:00 on both.

It would be a BIG help if Dish's guide had the actual start and stop times listed. At least then if you had a tuner that had to switch to start a new show, and the new show started at 9:01 and the show it was switching from ended at 9:01, it would get those right, even if it couldn't handle shows that end a minute after the new show starts.

You're 100% on this one... IF Dish is rounding down (as opposed to rounding up) then that would cause some problems too... and you're right, Dish could address this... though I wonder if there is an underlying reason why they don't do anything but 5 minute changes in the Dish EPG... maybe they've tried and it introduced more problems than it fixed?

It does not matter if I use the default that came with my DVR, the default that I changed on my DVR or manually set a different over/under when creating the timer. The padding is lost and the recording ends when the tuner is needed for the next event.

This is exactly right at least on my 722. Regardless of a manually entered start early/end late or the default option Back to back timers on both my tuners ignore the padding and fire the next timer exactly on the hour or 1/2 hour. The only time the padding works is when there is no other timer set to go off at the end of the show i am watching.

As long as I have settings greater than the "default" ones that come with the receiver... timers do not stop early or get interrupted by other timers.

Now, some say "I do that but then it skips recordings"... well, of course it does! Because there are a limited number of tuners... so if you create overlapping timers it needs unique tuners to launch them... so increasing the start or end padding naturally limits your ability to record shows.What are you doing differently from me?

..

The problem for me and what I am doing different than you is i have both tuners recording on some nights from 8pm to midnight. Back to back shows some on same channels some on different ones. Since all tuners are in use all the time the DVR has to ignore the padding and fire timers exactly on the hour. The only time padding works is when one of the tuners will be inactive when the other tuner finish recording.

One night of the week i do not have overlaps so i use the west coast feeds and never miss the ends of anything, but with so many shows on that i record coming on at the same times and on different networks my DVR is very busy.

3 recordings on 3 different networks, not all at the same time.
Wanted to watch the football game live.
At some points, ending timers at 9:00, beginning timers at 9:00.
But due to the issues you guys are noting, I end all shows 2 minutes late. So for a 2 minute overlap I needed all 3 tuners. 1, 2 and OTA for recordings. Then of course the recording that gets bumped to tuner 1 completes it's entire hour plus on tuner 1. So no football.

I ended up having to skip a recording on the first DVR and move it to my second DVR.

To make this issue worse, I lost my CBS local affiliate 3 weeks or so ago. So all of the CBS recordings have to be manual timers OTA. What a mess. Every day I have to check an online guide and adjust my DVR timers.

Also, it would be nice if networks didn't air all of the most popular shows on Thursdays.

I'm glad that this conversation is finally happening. I have been "bitching" about it for years and since there were "no other complaints", mine was a moot point as per all the reps I have spoken to. I keep telling myself that I'll give it a little longer . . . But it's now taking more time to babysit timers than get the fare online when I want and watching it. Netflix and Vudu are cheaper per month and far more reliable.

It's the networks purposefully trying to screw people who routinely DVR shows.

With that said, I really like the idea of being able to shift everything forward by a min or 2.

Or, a potentially easy fix for Dish would be to allow negative start time adjustments for shows. So instead of the default 1 min early, 3 min late, you could start a show -2 min "early" at the beg, 2 min late at the end, record shows back to back, and not miss any of the "sloppage" time from the networks.

Stewart, I'm not sure what you are arguing. There is no debate that if you have both tuners set to record and the timers are set to, say, a 5 minute pad (5 minutes late) they will ignore that and switch exactly at the moment the next show starts in order to not miss the beginning of that show. E.g. Tuner 1 is set to record 7-8:05 on ABC, Tuner 2 is set to record 7-8:05 on NBC, Tuner 1 is set to record the next show at 8-9:05 on Fox, Tuner 2 is set to record the next show at 8-9:05. If the show on ABC and NBC runs 30 seconds or 1 minute past 8, you will miss that.

What I can't figure out: We ran the experiment this week, my neighbor has DirectTV. We set schedules exactly the same, "full" Tuners scheduled back to back. Somehow his DVRs caught the end of the shows, while my Dish ones cut it off. It is as if the DirectTV DVRs somehow have a way to record the overlap on the two channels even when all tuners are being used. This matches what my experiences were with DirectTV until I switched to Dish recently - we just never had this last 30 seconds or minute ending cut-off problem but I don't know how they did it, I just know they somehow have the tech to do it and Dish doesn't.

I did also notice the difference someone noted, DirectTV is showing some shows ending at X:01 and Dish is showing the same show ending at X:0, FWIW

I did the same testing with DTV and Comcast (clients that want to move to DISH, but I won't let them because of this) and with no special tweaking all programs recorded in their entirety as they should have, when they should have and had accurate accountings of their real time length, and I did not have to spend more than a couple of seconds setting up a timer and no babysitting of that timer. Also the timers accurately showed the exact time of the program when recorded and in the pending timer. I too saw 0:01 and whatnot on the ending and beginnings of program listings, timers and recorded shows. That does not happen on DISH.

I have always thought that DISH had the better hardware and TiVo the better software. Guess we're all finding that out now. Just took a hundred of so pictures off my camera of EPG and Timer inaccuracies. Someday I'll have to make a gallery of this. But the more I dig into them the more pissed off I get. It's not pretty.

It's the networks purposefully trying to screw people who routinely DVR shows.

With that said, I really like the idea of being able to shift everything forward by a min or 2.

Or, a potentially easy fix for Dish would be to allow negative start time adjustments for shows. So instead of the default 1 min early, 3 min late, you could start a show -2 min "early" at the beg, 2 min late at the end, record shows back to back, and not miss any of the "sloppage" time from the networks.

I agree that it's the networks purposefully screwing up the times but come on, If dish can come up with auto skip for commercials (and really pissing off these same networks) on the new Hopper they should be able to figure out how to compensate for what the networks are doing here.

I agree that it's the networks purposefully screwing up the times but come on, If dish can come up with auto skip for commercials (and really pissing off these same networks) on the new Hopper they should be able to figure out how to compensate for what the networks are doing here.

+1!

But they can't because TiVo would sue them for infringement. OF WHICH if Charlie had bought TiVo a couple of Springs ago we wouldn't be here talking about this, and he'd have a ton of pending TiVo lawsuits in his favor and none against him. But I guess Hughes Aerospace and Blockbuster are more important.

I agree that it's the networks purposefully screwing up the times but come on, If dish can come up with auto skip for commercials (and really pissing off these same networks) on the new Hopper they should be able to figure out how to compensate for what the networks are doing here.

PTAT and AutoHop does that.

PTAT allowing the recording of up to four local networks (including the overlaps).AutoHop trimming the program to air just before the start to just after the finish.Record two programs in a row that overlap and each recording is the full program.

The 3 minute pad is not a "soft pad" If that pad is selected the only way to lose that pad is to manually stop the recording.

As far as the 60 minutes example goes, you can thank the NFL coverage on CBS for the odd start times on Sundays. CBS will run the entire Sunday prime time schedule after the end of the last "late" game (formerly a 4:05 or 4:15 start time late games now start at 4:30). FOX OTOH does not schedule anything important at 7:00 PM, instead they schedule a post game show that is flexible - that is it runs until the top or bottom of the hour so that the Sunday PT shows start on time, even when a late game runs late (they just cancel the 7:30 cartoon show so that the 8:00 Simpsons almost always starts on time).

To get around this I've been doing a manual timer set to record 2 more hours than needed. It may be a little bit cumbersome to keep track of what is recorded because the recorded program will be called 60 minutes & run for several hours. But I get everything & only use one tuner.